Journalist Masha Gessen Is Fleeing Russia

The idea that you can’t tell your kids to be proud of their family hits you at your core as a parent.

The new Russian law banning homosexual propaganda is why journalist Masha Gessen says she is leaving the country with her pregnant same sex partner and two children. In her post in the Guardian -which has now gone viral– Gessen writes:

“My family is moving to New York. We have the money and documents needed to do that with relative ease – unlike thousands of other LGBT families and individuals in Russia.”

Gessen is no quitter, not that there’s anything remotely ‘quit-like’ about leaving your country to ensure your family’s safety. When the news broke out about the law, Gessen fought back, speaking publicly and launching a pink triangle campaign to raise awareness. Then, in one month she says she was beat up in front of parliament, and all of a sudden could no longer be seen as a journalist, despite having an internationally recognized career, and penning a well-read biography about Vladimir Putin. She was now a ‘pink triangle’ first; a journalist, second.

My partner’s first reaction to the news out of Russia hit her as a mother: how does not being able to ‘promote’ gay rights affect queer parents? It turns out her reaction was both primal and accurate, as per Gessen’s experience.

Instilling pride in our family structure is something we queer parents just do, it’s like brushing your kid’s teeth or keeping a good supply of band-aids in the cupboard. We build confidence in our kids so they can talk back to the inevitable playground gender police who tell them they ‘have to’ have a mom and a dad or that girls can’t like Spiderman and boys can’t play with dolls.

You can read Gessen’s full article here, and more information about what’s going on in Russia can be found here and here and here.